Hobbit law: the sequel
Labour’s plan for the movie industry
Even before the boxes were unpacked in his new Beehive office, Iain LeesGalloway was scrambling to soothe jittery movie producers, to avoid losing one of the most costly films ever to be made in New Zealand.
Despite Labour Party commitments to repeal the so-called “Hobbit Law”, introduced amid controversy by John Key and his Government in 2010, the new Workplace Relations Minister is taking a far more circumspect approach than some movie executives had feared.
After some trepidation about what the Government would do to the country’s film industry laws, one insider confirmed to the Herald this week that the $150 million Disney production Mulan has been given the green light, and will indeed be made at Auckland’s Kumeu Film Studios.
The tale of a sword-wielding Chinese heroine will be directed by Whale
Rider’s Niki Caro, and producers have bagged the star power of Chinese actor Liu Yifei.
Eager to distance himself from the previous Labour plan — before LeesGalloway took up the portfolio — to repeal the law outright, the minister says he wants to restore Kiwi actors’ and crew members’ right to bargain collectively and be assured of fair employment terms. That will not necessarily mean a repeal.
To that end, the minister is organising a working group of players from all sides of the movie industry — a business Lees-Galloway describes as a “complete anomaly” in New Zealand because of the extremely fluid and varied nature of the work involved.
But with so many competing interests, and the furore that accompanied the Hobbit Law’s hasty introduction, the Government has a tightrope to walk to ensure any changes don’t scare off the film studios, or attract the wrath of local film workers.
The Employment Relations ( Film Production Work) Amendment Act — invariably referred to simply as the Hobbit Law — was brought in by the National-led Government because of fears that New Zealand might have lost Sir Peter Jackson’s blockbuster Hobbit trilogy to another country.
It meant Kiwi film workers were contractors by default and could not legally bargain collectively.
Previously, workers could potentially disrupt a production by testing their employment status and, if confirmed as employees, start collective bargaining. The big studios, Warner Bros in particular, didn’t like that uncertainty.
Many actors and unions were outraged, with threats of boycotts and widespread protests over what they saw as a denial of their basic employment rights.
However, others in the industry were equally upset at the prospect of movie jobs vanishing overseas, and some fans were furious with the actors for potentially depriving New Zealand of the chance to make the films, with all the benefits they would bring to the country. According to Statistics NZ’s Screen Industry Survey, film production revenue more than doubled to more than $1 billion in 2015-16.
Jackson and the Government claimed the actors’ protests could derail the production and force the filmmakers to send the project to a country that would welcome the tens of millions of dollars it would bring.
After “a nasty and embarrassing moment in New Zealand history” — in the words of the actors’ de facto spokeswoman Robyn Malcolm — the Government pushed the law through, with all three films ultimately being made here.
So has the Hobbit law worked? It depends who you ask. The film crews are happy with it, according to their union, the Screen Industry Guild, because it gives them the flexibility of being independent contractors, meaning they can opt out of working on a men’s undies advert to work on a three- year feature film.
But the actors don’t like it, says their union, Equity NZ, because there are no binding minimum employment standards available to their members.
The Screen Production and Development Association (SPADA), which advocates for producers, has remained tight- lipped about the upcoming negotiations, but has been a staunch advocate of the legislation in the past, due to the amount of work it says the law brings to New Zealand.
All parties spoken to by the Herald seemed optimistic about the upcoming negotiations, praising Lees-Galloway for bringing all sides into the loop from the outset.
“The whole point of the working group is to look at what is the best way for us to make good on that commitment in a way that restores fairness for the people working in the industry but is also fit for purpose for the industry,” the minister says. “Whether it should be a repeal, an alteration, or what legislative instrument we might use, is exactly the question that the working group is going to look at.”
A key issue, he says, is whether it is possible to introduce collective bargaining without a full repeal of the law. Another question is how to enable collective bargaining without workers having to go through the tedious process of negotiating contracts for every single production they work on.
With some film workers wanting to be full employees, and others happy as contractors, the group will also assess whether it’s possible for some arrangement to cover both.
“If film workers have the right to bargain collectively, regardless of whether they are an employee or a contractor, then that really deals with that issue,” Lees-Galloway says. “This is certainly not an exercise in diminishing people’s rights; this is an exercise in restoring people’s rights, but doing it in a fashion that is fit for purpose for the industry.”
As far as the people behind the movies are concerned, the minister says they weren’t worried about money — but they were worried about uncertainty. No studio wants to end up in court disputing the nature of an employment relationship when all they want to do is make movies, he says.
“The concern that has been raised is that if someone who is deemed to be a contractor . . . mid-way through a production wants to test the nature of their employment [in court], that’s the uncertainty that producers want to avoid.” Despite all the competing interests
This is an exercise in restoring people’s rights, but doing it in a fashion that is fit for purpose for the industry. Iain Lees-Galloway